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Technical seminar on the Ethics of Climate Change
 


Date, time & venue

2017-01-20;6:30pm - 8:00pm;Lecture Room, MTR Tower, Main Entrance at 2/F Telford Plaza Podium, Kowloon Bay.

 

Technical seminar on the Ethics of Climate Change

 

Date, time & venue

20 January 2017 (Friday); 6:30 – 8:00 pm; Lecture Room, MTR Tower, Main Entrance at 2/F Telford Plaza Podium, Kowloon Bay.

 

Speaker

Mr. LEUNG Wing-mo, Assistant Director of the Hong Kong Observatory (Retired).

 

Programme Highlights

Climate change is fundamentally a scientific problem, but it transcends science and cuts across other dimensions: economics, social, political, religious, and above all, ethical.  Confronted with a challenge of such a magnitude of complexity, it is opined that we have to appeal to our sense of moral responsibility to solve the problem together.  Unfortunately, the ethical dimension of climate change has never been a part of the agenda of international discussions in the past decades. During this talk, issues like climate vulnerability, historical responsibility, examples of blatant moral corruption, etc. will be discussed.

 

Registration & Enquiries

The seminar is free of charge and prior registration is required.  The number of participants will be limited to 40 and applicants will be served on a first-come-first-serve basis. Priority will be given to the members of Nuclear Division. For registration, please complete and return the Standard Reply Form to Mr. Barry Lee via Email: nuclear@ne.hkie.org.hk by 6 January 2017. Successful applicants will be notified by email. For enquiries, please contact Mr. Barry Lee at khlee@emsd.gov.hk or Tel: 3155 3950.

 

Disclaimer

All information and views expressed by speakers and in their conference materials do not reflect the official opinion and position of HKIE. No responsibility is accepted by the HKIE or their publisher for such information and views including their accuracy, correctness and veracity.

 

 





Report

 

Technical Seminar on the Ethics of Climate Change

 

Prepared By Ir Richard Fung

 

The Nuclear Division organized a technical seminar on the Ethics of Climate Change on 20 January 2017 with 35 participants.  The seminar was presented by Mr. Wing Mo Leung, retired Assistant Director of the Hong Kong Observatory.

 

Mr. Leung opened by providing convincing evidence of climate change in the form of global warming, and general scientific consensus that it is the cumulative effect of artificial discharge of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels over the past centuries.  There have been many investigations into the topic from the perspective of science, economics, sociology, politics and religion.  The seminar appealed to the audience to view it also from the ethical perspective.

 

Through our daily activities, each one of us has perhaps unwittingly contributed to CO2 emission with the better off contributing more.  Yet the harm of the emission is displaced widely across time, space and species, and in our own kind with the poorest, the most helpless and the least responsible being affected the most.  The gravity of the issue means that any residual scientific uncertainties should not be an excuse for inaction.

 

It is argued that more corrective actions should come from those historically responsible, those who have benefitted, and those technically and economically capable.  At both personal and institutional levels, we can take actions which reduce the harmful effects, and to exercise restraint/moderation resulting in a lower burden on the environment. Pleasure is not necessarily derived from consuming.

 

Ethics will call upon us to look at the moral issue of a climate-related action being right or wrong, its motive being good or bad, and the issue of climate change invites us to care about each other and nature in an unprecedented way, and in doing so to cultivate lives worth living.

 

The seminar topic was at a level above but not unrelated to our usual engineering world.  During the closing question and answer session, Mr. Leung proposed that all wedges should be used to reduce CO2 emission, and that nuclear energy which comes without emission, would be a useful transitional tool.

Photo Caption :

Mr. W M Leung (left) receiving a souvenir from Ir Ryan Lam, Honorary Secretary of the Nuclear Division

 

 
 

 

 
 
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